Catwoman [GC]

If you're going to play a video game based on a movie, it's best to do it when the movie's still current, right? If that movie happens to be Catwoman, then the game better be on time, have lots of Halle Berry, and be very memorable (to offset a forgettable movie). Two out of three-- well, in this case, even two out of three still isn't good.

EA's Catwoman looks pretty good, and at times, its visuals even border on great. The environments are uniformly dark and urban, with a cinematic sheen to nighttime streets, walls, alleys, and interiors. The character models and animations are mostly high-quality, and you could frankly do much worse than spending your time looking at the virtual-leather felinity of a skimpily clad Halle Berry. Sadly, you will do worse shortly after you start playing.

Following the movie's plot, Catwoman puts players in the shiny black heels of (the late) Patience Philips, the latest mousy incarnation of the cat/woman badass. After a short tutorial segment that sets up Catwoman's moves and supernatural origins, it's time to hunt down the people responsible for Patience's earthly demise.

Catwoman approaches gameplay as a series of jumping, climbing, and swinging puzzles sprinkled with combat. At first glance one might be tempted to compare it to Ubisoft's phenomenal Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, but the illusion quickly crumbles.

The game's camera is single-mindedly fixed on dramatic angles, which make playing the game difficult and frustrating. Gamers will instinctively try to manually control the camera, and be confounded each time they can't.

Catwoman can climb some sheer surfaces, leap about, and use her whip to, um, whip from pole to pole in convenient urban jungle-gym setups. And of course, she can wail on bad guys. The environmental puzzle setups look pretty good -- climb the wall, lash onto the nearest outcropping, swing to clamber chain link fences, etc. It's just a shame the game actively fights your ability to navigate them.

Similar difficulties crop up in the combat. Attacks are fairly simple, being executed by moving the analog stick toward foes. Modifying attacks depends on the enemy's proximity (if they're close, you can whip the weapon from their hands!), whether Catwoman is crouching, and which new moves you've "purchased."

It's possible to pull off some rather balletic attacks, cartwheeling around until you do a super-slick move, such as kicking an enemy into a trashcan. Yeah, it's neat-looking... but the martial-arts love affair will start to whither when you realize it all boils down to attacking again and again until you're finally aligned the camera correctly to put the bad guy in the side pocket.

At least the Berry-modeled warrior is fun to watch... until she opens her virtual mouth. The cinematics and dialogue are just as lame as the camera (but on the plus side, at least they're relatively sparse). The cheesy character voice work isn't even deliberately oversexed in a so-bad-it's-good way. It's just bad.

One touch we found interesting is the first-person view in which Catwoman can sense the visible trails of her quarry. Little glowing paths indicate the way enemies have moved, so you'll need to look around to see where to go next.

Hardcore fans of the actress or the license will like the game solely for its visuals, but there's just nothing to recommend to casual or serious gamers. Even for a game attached to a mediocre film, Catwoman is a surprising mix of missed opportunities. Halle Berry's silken, sexy purr is more likely to embarrass than arouse. Mee-ouwch.